Stomp
by axmly
Summary: A round of Super Mario Bros as told dramatically from the point of view of a piece of code for the game.


It was dark. Simply, black. I knew nothing, I was nothing. I was merely a whisper of a thought, less than the most meager ghost. I couldn't… move. I just was _there._ I wasn't anything, besides a piece of memory.  
I waited in the black for what felt like decades on end. All I knew was that I had to wait. Wait for something. Wait for my destiny.

A little while, the little jingle of success dinged. I didn't know why, but it meant that something was going right. Then, a flash of bright light!

Everything was white, blinding light. I was engulfed in it, completely soaking in it. And then things began to form, the landscape, the picture, the world. I actually… could feel. I looked down at my hands, and I gripped my fists tight. I was here, I was given a chance, and I wouldn't screw it up. Others, they had opportunities. All the other ones had given theirs away. I wouldn't. Now was my time, and I'd use it to MY advantage. A little tune blared, and a rush of instincts followed! _Run. Jump. Stomp._

I ran across the grassy landscape, and it wasn't for five minutes when I reached my first obstacle. It was just my size, and immediately I was rammed with the red hot urge to murder it, viciously, to use these white boots of mine to totally flatten it. It was over powering… I tried what I could, I tried jumping over it, but… it was _following_ me. It was after me, it was coming to get me, dammit! The urge washed over me again, it took over my brain, and suddenly, I had one foot atop its head and the other pushing off from the ground, and I jumped… and I _stomped. _And it was brutally destroyed. Flattened into nothing, its skull completely crushed, blood oozing out from its annihilated form. His brain was turned to gelatinous mush. It was a mess. And I had done it. Me, little old me, the one waiting in the code to be picked and sent into this marvelous world! I was the one! I had done it! Me, me, ME!

It was a rush none other could match. I had been the killer of it, this horrible thing. I had been the one to take his life. It was… an adrenaline rush.

I hit the boxes above me, and I was rewarded with coins, and some little mushroom. The instincts came in again.

_Eat…eat…eat!_

And so I did. I devoured the mushroom. And then I was really king of the world. I had grown twice my size, and suddenly, it was as if I had two lives. I could do anything, and it didn't really matter, because if something happened to me, I'd always have something to fall back on. I was… it was… exhilarating.

I had breezed past the rest of the land. I could run fast, jump high, and stomp… with ease. Each time it gave me that rush. That adrenaline, I could feel it, pumping through my veins! It gave me power. It gave me my right to rule. I was the master of this puny little being's destiny… I chose if they were to live, or die, I was GOD! No repercussions, no judgment!

But I got careless. I got bloated on my own ideas, my own thoughts, and my own way of ruling things. And… I got hit.

It didn't hurt as bad as one would assume, at least not physically. But mentally… I was devastated. Broken. I had been given a way into power, but I had been stripped of it all, and now I was on terms with the rest of the little brown creatures, we were on the same level. It was unbearable. It took away my game, took away my urge to get to the end!

But I got close. Oh, lord, I got close, then came the two of them.

They were quick, and cunning. They came down the little stairs that would lead me to the end, would take me to the next arena, the next challenge. And while they were sharp, I was better. I feinted to the left, jumped some overtop blocks, and jumped on the second creature. Its head crunched in with a satisfying noise and the blood on my boots, it wasn't something to wipe away, and it was a mark of honor.

And stupid me, I stood basking in my own glory for too long. That's what happens when you get as egocentric as I did. I never saw him coming, I had one foot on the bottom step of my staircase, the other on the ground, and I looked up imagining what life would be like, once I had killed every single last living thing in this god forsaken world. And I could live, happily, just me and… what was her name? The name, it escaped me… the pink dress… the blonde hair… but I couldn't think up the damn girl's name.

Then it came over me, engulfing me in the same kind of bright light that washed over me before, and a shocking realization hit me.

It was right behind me.

I slid back, ready to jump, but it was far closer than I imagined, and within seconds, I was no longer a piece of the comprehendible world, I was detached, and falling fast into a pit of black oblivion. And I was no more.

I waited still, constantly waiting, thinking, and pondering. I was in a better place of mind, nothing so dark and powerful. I was in peace of mind, and I felt fine.

Then it came again. The engulfing white light, was I really going to get another chance? Was I really going to be so blessed? Most of us don't even get as far as I did, a single opportunity to go into the world. To go and live in reality, to go and be formed and stabilized from our simple little code selves, to be changed from little pieces of binary and code into a real form. Not all of us got that chance, and I get it twice in merely seconds?

The white light came over me once more and when I came to my formalized state, I stood there in stasis until the little jingle played and I was allowed out of my invisible prison. But… this time was different. This time, I was… I wasn't… I didn't have my glorious white boots, I couldn't feel my hands, all I could feel were my skittering little feet. What was this? What was I? I didn't understand-

Oh. No.

This couldn't be… no, I was made to be the ruler! I was made to be, I was made to be the god, and I was destined to be the Man in the Red Clothes! But instead… instead…

I was the brown creature. I was the puny one. I was... a Goomba.

I prayed. I prayed, and prayed, for this one to be merciful. Get the mushroom, but leave me alone. I couldn't jump, fly, or fight back, I was trapped.

Then the jingle played. I was set free, and I skittered across the ground, in the opposite direction of the Man in the Red Clothes, but I hit a wall, and I was thrown the other direction.

Right into his path.

Please be merciful… spare me, spare me, spare me…

And he jumped right over me. He hit the mushroom block, ate it, and then went out of my view.

He had spared me. Ha, I was still God in this damned place. I had been the Man in the Red Clothes once, and while I died I still got to have the experience, and I was a surviving Goomba. Life was good. Life was great. I could just sit back and enjoy it all while sitting in this nice cool shade.

Wait, shade?

I looked up, and that was the wrong thing to do. He came down on me with two hundred pounds of pure plumber, and my eyes gouged from my eye sockets as my head was crushed into itself, blood and internal organs spewing from my sides. It happened quickly, but to me it was a million years. And all it would be the Code that sat inside the Man in the Red Clothes was just another little…

Stomp.


End file.
